Hesai holds 62% of robotaxi lidar as Yole forecasts a 33-fold fleet expansion by 2031
Hesai says Yole Group's Robotaxi 2026 report gives it 62% of the robotaxi lidar market in 2025, up from 61%. Operators have not spread their orders as fleets begin to scale, and the main exception is Waymo, which designs its own lidar.
Hesai supplied 62% of the lidar bought for robotaxis in 2025, more than all other suppliers combined, according to Yole Group's Robotaxi 2026 report as cited by Hesai on Oct. 29. Yole's previous report had put Hesai at 61%.
The share barely moved, and that is the finding. Fleets are starting to grow and operators have not spread their orders: Yole expects the global robotaxi fleet to rise from about 10,000 vehicles in 2025 to 331,000 in 2031, roughly 33 times. If the share holds, most of the lidar on those vehicles comes from one company. Hesai names Baidu Apollo Go, Pony.ai, WeRide, DiDi, Motional, Aurora and KargoBot among the Level 4 programs that selected its sensors.
Hesai is building for that volume. Its cumulative deliveries passed 3.5 million units in June, its lines turn out one lidar every 8 seconds, and a plant in Bangkok is due to start production in 2027. An upgraded ETX with up to 4,320 channels and 600 meters of range is in RFI and RFQ talks with robotaxi operators and carmakers.
Waymo is not among the programs Hesai names. Its sixth-generation lidar runs on chips and optics it designs itself, with core components designed and built in California.
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